


From The Smallest Things

by zauberer_sirin



Category: Fullmetal Alchemist
Genre: Drabble, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-05-11
Updated: 2009-05-11
Packaged: 2017-10-13 04:41:35
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 688
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/133047
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/zauberer_sirin/pseuds/zauberer_sirin
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><i>Amidst the final battle Hawkeye has a moment of weakness and roy has the need for her strength</i></p><p>Written May 2009.</p>
            </blockquote>





	From The Smallest Things

**from the smallest things**

It's the moment before the end. Which is to say, it's the moment before the beginning. That's no way to tell a story. But this is what it takes. They can't remember a moment when the world was not filled with exhaustion, pain and ashes. Ashes that follow air currents down corridors, ashes light as feathers, a world after the fire.

They hold nothing but the memory of fight, struggle.

Hawkeye is helping him stay up, his hand on the doorframe. His breathing becomes more laboured. His arm is over her shoulders, Hawkeye touching the small of his back, fitting in the space between his shoulderblades. She thinks Roy looks thinner now, but somehow feels heavier to the touch.

His breathing -even among the noise of the fighting across the whole building, it's the thing Hawkeye feels louder. She worries. She worries that the wound hit nearer to the lung than she thought, nearer than Roy let on.

`Please, steady yourself. Don't do anything reckless, sir,´

Roy grins. Looks at her like he knows the “ _sir_ ” is just a way to protect herself, a back-to-the-basics now that all that is redundant.

`I just need a moment,´ he says, shrugging her off carefully and resting all his weight on the wall. `You know? I never thought you'd let anyone close enough to me that they'd beat me up like this.´

`They were fast,´ Hawkeye apologizes, looking away.

Three doors away there's a dry sound, like the clink of bullets on metal. For the second time in their lives they have no memory of a world without chaos and scent of gunpowder. But this time is different.

Roy grabs her hand and puts it against him; he squeezes it and leaves it there, pressed to his chest. His eyes are closed. He is drawing long breaths, trying to recover some energy, if there's any left. His face looks twisted in struggle, but somehow gentle, too. A focused expression, his whole body suntle leaning into that hand on his chest, as if he could physically draw strength from the fact that Hawkeye's fingers are tightly tangled with his – both covered on ash, dust, remnants of dried blood.

Then Roy makes a gesture as if to stand up, go on. Hawkeye's fingers twist on his shirt and stop him.

`Hawkeye...´

`Maybe we can stay here a while,´ she is not looking at him. `Recover. You are not fit to fight right now.´

Roy frowns and then, as if in sudden understanding, gives her a tiny smile.

`We can't hide.´

She looks up.

`No, I wasn't-´

She stops. Wasn't she? For a moment it was all too much. She always tells herself: maybe this one too many times we've about to- But then it happens again. And it's a little bit more dangerous, a little bit more unbearable. He is the one who wants to save the world, Hawkeye is concerned with smaller things, like his breathing, all the blood he's lost, the soft skin of his cheeks smeared with smoke and dirt and tears of anger.

`We can't stop now,´ Roy tells her. `Not now. Not for a moment. People need me. People need _us_.´

It takes a moment – all their crises have been brief, because they are just too good for the other, they will always tell stories about one of them having the other's back. One step is his, the next hers. The rhythm is even, perfect.

Hawkeye nods.

She takes Roy's arm and puts it over her shoulder, letting all his weight and his tiredness and his weakness rest on her for a moment.

`We cannot wait around and hope some invisible power comes and saves the day. Can we?´ He says, his face bright and pure. `There's only one _right_ way to do this.´

The muffled sound of a explosion somewhere in the city. The glass in the windows shake a bit. This is the moment before the moment before-

She nods again, staring at the white of his eyes.

The only way to tell this story is:

They walk on. They go on.


End file.
